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How 'bout them Huskers?
Ask that question these days in your local coffee shop or barber chair, and the reflex response probably still will have something to do with football. But as The Streak mounts, the conversation quickly turns the way it did when Kevin Williams fielded the question over French toast at Leo's Diner in Omaha's Benson neighborhood.
“Well, usually it's football, but really it's the girls basketball team right now,” said Williams, a sports fan who loves Big Red success in any form. “They're undefeated, and the farther the season goes along, the more people are getting the fever and giving them the credit they deserve.”
How about these Huskers?
These 25-0, No. 3-in-the-nation, hard-charging, sharp-shooting women with the grit of a windy day in the Sand Hills and the never-say-quit attitude of their coach from Omaha.
Suddenly, the hottest sports phenomenon in Big Red Country wears hair bands.
How big has coach Connie Yori's Nebraska women's basketball team exploded?
They've been drawing more than 10,000 fans to the Devaney Center for home games, including 10,988 for an Ash Wednesday game against Iowa State.
On Saturday, 12,747 people watched them defeat Colorado to run The Streak to 25 wins in a row. Last year, these Huskers averaged 3,200 for regular season home games. This year, the average is 6,597, and climbing, toward the top 10 nationally; the average is more than 10,800 for Big 12 Conference games.
Nebraska has done a lot of ticket promotions to get fans in the door. But many are hooked and coming back.
The team's followers are following the Huskers on the road, too. More than 1,000 Nebraska fans traveled to Boulder, Colo., for an away game against the Buffaloes, and at least 800 trekked to Columbia, Mo., for a game against Missouri.
The Fastbreakers, the Husker women's basketball booster club, quickly planned a bus trip for the Feb. 24 Oklahoma game. An hour before tipoff Saturday, only two seats remained open for the $95-a-person trip. The booster club's membership has grown by more than 80, to more than 300.
On Saturday, people lined up outside the Devaney Center nearly two hours before the game to buy tickets. Adessa Knickerbocker and Nicole Owen, both 23 and from Lincoln, were in that line.
“We've come to every home game for two months,” Knickerbocker said.
They love the electricity of the arena. The way the fans love the team. The way the Huskers play like they're having fun.
“The good seats are all getting bought up early now,” Owen said. “We're going to get season tickets for next year.”
Longtime fans like Doug Fry are loving it.
A Fastbreakers vice president, he has belonged to the club for 10 years after getting hooked on Nebraska basketball with his family. Fry has seen some big crowds and some good Nebraska women's basketball teams through the years — the team won more than 20 games and qualified for the NCAA tournament in 2007 and 2008.
He's been part of a core group of about 3,000 fans that cheered them through losing seasons, too. And to be sure, this is hardly the first time Nebraska has gone nuts for a Big Red women's sports team. Volleyball, anyone?
But this year has been like no other for Nebraska women's basketball, with the team's appeal broadening as its success grows. Fry has a son-in-law who said he'd never go to a women's basketball game. Now you can't keep him away.
The baristas and regulars at Toast, Fry's neighborhood coffee shop in suburban Lincoln, looked at him funny last fall when he said these Huskers could be an NCAA Final Four team. They don't anymore — they want to hear more about it.
“There's a complete buzz about the women's program right now,” Fry said. “I like that people are finally giving it a chance and watching them.”
The success has surprised some people. The team was picked to finish seventh in the Big 12. But the Fastbreakers and other close followers knew better. They knew 6-foot-2 senior Kelsey Griffin of Eagle River, Alaska, would be back, more skilled and relentless than ever after sitting out last year's losing season; that guard Yvonne Turner from Bellevue East would light it up from three-point range; and that Yori would have these Huskers playing as a team.
They've come a long way since Yori's first season, 2002-03, as head coach. The former Creighton University star and coach went 8-20 that year in Lincoln.
Yet the core fans gave the team standing ovations as it left the court, even after losses.
“We did that because we knew they were trying,” said Sue Bolz, Fastbreakers president.
Those ovations brought Yori to tears a couple times, said Jeff Griesch, NU director of media relations operations.
Now, they're smiling together, these Huskers and their growing bandwagon of fans.
It seems that anywhere sports talk comes up in Nebraska, these Huskers come up too — even at the state high school wrestling tournament at the Qwest Center Omaha.
“What are they, No. 3 now?” said Kai Konicek, 22, of West Point between his brother Clay's matches last week. “I don't think they'll get to No. 1, though. Connecticut's too good.”
The Streak comes up at break time at Konicek's job at West Point Design. It comes up every day about 2 p.m. in Ruth's Sweet Shop & Café in Charter Oak, Iowa. That's what time J.R. Keating (who happens to be the grandfather of Husker senior guard Kala Kuhlmann) and his buddies come in for coffee.
“Everybody knows they're good,” Keating said.
Thirty to 40 people from Charter Oak go to Lincoln for every home game, he said. It's been that way since Kuhlmann was a freshman.
But now those Iowans have a lot more company.
Why are people so into these Huskers?
“Nebraska fans go crazy for anything when a Husker team is winning,” Konicek said.
On Saturday, 26-year-old David Quinn walked into the Devaney Center late with three buddies. They ended up in the nosebleed seats. It was the first time Quinn, a former Devaney Center computer employee, had paid to see a game. None of the guys had attended a women's game before.
“Their record's phenomenal,” Quinn said.
“My wife told me that if they lose today, I'm not allowed to go to any more games.”
Saturday's crowd included 36 eighth- and ninth-grade girls basketball players from Norfolk, Neb. They wore matching T-shirts that read “Commitment Means Basketball Is Our Boyfriend.” Coach Dustin Kraemer had come up with some tickets.
“I didn't even ask my parents,” said Ashley Sellin, 15. “I had to go.”
She and teammates Whitney Schutt, 14, Farren Lovell, 14, and Katherine Dover, 15, said they had seen Griffin and company play on TV and can't get enough of it. They planned to pick up some pointers from these Huskers on Saturday.
“Mostly, we want to be here to see them in person,” Ashley said.
Added Whitney: “I want to see them win again.”
She did.
After the game, a handful of Huskers signed autographs for hundreds of fans. Kuhlmann, seated on the end, popped up and joined fans for photos whenever they asked.
Tim Fralin of Beatrice, Neb., snapped pictures of his sons Tyler, 14, and Bryson, 10, collecting autographs on a miniature basketball from their favorite players, Lindsey Moore and Vonnie Turner.
The Fralins have attended the last few games. “Now we're addicted,” Tim Fralin said.
These Huskers are the talk of the Beatrice factory where Fralin works. He's thinking about joining co-workers as a season ticketholder for next year.
“It's not all about just football in the state of Nebraska now,” Fralin said. “It's women's basketball, too.”
Contact the writer:
444-1057, christopher.burbach@owh.com
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